E 457 



.B43 
Copy 1 

m 





Class EjV51_. 

Book 



Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



One hundred, tiuenty-five copies printed, each numbered am 
"^Number S.tfCty^f™ ' U*£*f 

MlMJdJ..U£..A 



gbrafjam Lincoln 

This photograph was printed especially for this volume 

direct from the original negative, made from life early in 

1 86 1 , by C. S. Germon, in Springfield, Illinois 

The original negative is preserved in the collection of 
Frederick Hill Meserve, Esq., New York City 



^Kimfjam Lincoln 



A POETICAL INTERPRETATION 



BY 

George William $ell,$(.8. 




PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY 
THE ARTHUR H.CLARK COMPANY 

CLEVELAND, 1913 



COPYRIGHT, IQI^^BY 

GEORGE WILLIAM BELL 



To my parents 

James &. anb iflarp €. ^ell 

highest exemplars of 
true fatherhood and motherhood 



Contents 

Foreword . . . . . . i i 

Part One -The Shaping Current . . 19 

The Lifting of the Veil 

The Freeing of the Spirit 

The Coming of the Races 

The Welding of the Parts 
Part Two - The Unending Toil . . . 37 

Lincoln's first official Utterance 

Lincoln's last public Expression 

Ancestral Tracings 

Personal Inheritances 

Home Influences 

The Call and the Vision 

The Law and its Voice 

The Voice becomes National 

Weakness and Strength 

National Ills 

The Major and the Minor 

The vicarious Sacrifice 

The Burden and the Faith 

The higher Humanity 

The higher Leadership 

Gettysburg 

Death of Lincoln 

The Waste of Passion 

Our human Loss 
Part Three - The Achieving Spirit . . 75 

Personal Significance 

The Torch of Permanence 



Contents 



The Power of Love 
The higher Thinking 
The Torch of Power 
Fortitude 

The Voice of Relief 
The higher Living 
The Crown of Life 
The Nation's Seer 



Jforetoortr 

The truth of life with its reaches of sentiment 
and romance presents to man his most fascinating 
and eternal problem. To reconcile this pervasive 
romance in a nation's history with the demands of 
modern scholarship is neither an easy nor always 
a desirable undertaking; and the attempted recon- 
ciliation too often discloses the scholar without 
imagination. Still we are passing along a way, 
wherein the sensitive imagination is being intelli- 
gently informed. Facts have their romance as well 
as hearsay and tradition. One need not move out- 
side the material and spiritual circle of any simple 
and sincere life to meet with the most sublime 
thoughts and highest ideals of the thinker and poet. 

Remarkable have been the achievements of his- 
torical and scientific scholarship in the last few 
decades, suggesting a field of vision to the poet- 
prophet or affording an opportunity to the poet- 
interpreter; and as he draws nigh unto his facts, his 
vision strengthens and he reads the human heart as 
one inspired. There is ethical significance here for 
both the poet and the race. There is an immediacy 
of environment playing upon every life inhering in 
the very truth of that life. Here lies the common 
11 



jforetoorb 



meeting-ground for poet and scholar, giving us the 
judgment of truth touched in colors of flesh and 
blood. 

The recent researches of Mrs. Caroline Hanks 
Hitchcock, and Messrs. Howard, Learned, Lea, 
and Hutchinson have been of inestimable value in 
providing the way for silencing those who would 
throw a cloud over the reputation of Nancy Hanks, 
beloved mother of Abraham Lincoln. To Lea and 
Hutchinson, especially, are we indebted for estab- 
lishing the chain of Lincoln descent back into the 
sixteenth century, and proving to a reasonable de- 
gree of certainty that the Lincolns, even the much 
scorned father of the president, have always been 
among the first of their equals. 

Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of the presi- 
dent, was born February 5, 1784, and died October 
15, 1818, at the age of thirty-four. Within those 
few years were compressed much of early happi- 
ness and some sorrow -for Nancy was orphaned 
at nine years of age; something in the home of her 
guardian, Aunt Lucy Shipley Berry, of a joyous and 
intelligent leadership among her young compan- 
ions, until she was fairly wooed and won by the in- 
dustrious young carpenter, Thomas Lincoln; some- 
thing of the experiences of a married life of simple 
joy, for she loved her husband and their three chil- 
dren, of whom two lived to be trained and instruct- 
ed by her in the great and good things of life; and 
finally, something of the common trials and suffer- 



jforetoorb 



ings of the wife on the frontier of civilization, pass- 
ing to an early death. 

The mystery of life is the law of its continuance - 
the forgetting and the remembering, the sinking 
down and the rising up, the shaping of life upon 
life. We cannot account for the meanest specimen 
of mankind without entering the laboratory of the 
mystic, and we shall never explain this Abraham 
Lincoln by the historic method alone. The influ- 
ences that moulded the future leader of his race 
were subtle and varied; but we may be certain that 
the influence of his mother transcended any other. 
He himself has said, "All that I am or hope to be, 
I owe to my angel mother;" and we are slowly real- 
izing that our president was even more of a Hanks, 
than a Lincoln, as his features and mental charac- 
teristics reveal. His wonderful tenderness and 
humanity and his humor are the pervading char- 
acteristics that came to him from his mother's line. 
His sturdy honesty, his high sense of duty and his 
capacity for suffering seem to be the elements, pe- 
culiarly Lincoln, in his personality. 

The union of the Lincoln and Hanks families 
brought together two forces of eminent respectabil- 
ity in their ranges of living. In the persons of 
Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, we have -a 
man, who amidst a series of the most tragic hap- 
penings of a frontier life, proves himself capable of 
sustaining an unwearying contest- a woman who 
is above the average of her class in every way, yet 

15 



jforetoorb 



so gentle and intelligent as to win all as friends, one 
capable of sacrificing for the good of her family 
whatever was necessary of her own life. There 
can be no rhetorical exaggeration in placing the 
name of Nancy Hanks beside that of her martyred 
son. The early death of this estimable woman gave 
to Lincoln an ever ennobling memory but removed 
from his daily presence a practical influence that 
would have meant much to the unconscious refine- 
ment of a noble human soul. As we link together 
the names of Washington and Lincoln, let us also 
place beside them the names of the two women who 
were so much to them -Martha Washington and 
Nancy Hanks- the wife and the mother. 

George William Bell. 
Stoneham, Mass., February, 1913. 



:; 



Part one 
flEfje Raping Current 



®be lifting of tfje \Teil I 

Hail, mind of to-day, that with its spirit 

Relights the dimming glow of cycles past 
And fans to radiant brightness, darkest pit 

That through long ages was not- an outcast! 
That gropes with monumental patience, lest 

Some valued and unsung memorial 
Of ancient greatness keep its unknown rest, 

And bear its part in silence -mystical! 
To find, and to creatively affirm 

The human stepping of the sons of God 
Towards that inevitable, final term, 

Where man no more sees service 'neath the rod. 
The physical endurance of a noble past 

Unveils but slowly its heroic might, 
Yet lights up in the glowing mind, at last 

A wondering tenderness for sorrow's night. 

The pre-historic days, the ancient world, 
The ferment born of time long since unfurled; 
Have passed in some degree, will pass far more 
Into the life that ventures to restore. 



21 



®ije lifting ol tfje \Xeil-2 

And restoration is the art of arts- 

To build again the thought and deed of those 
Who in creation's early days made charts 

And evolved principles that slowly rose 
In elemental greatness -this the task- 

To reconstruct a life and time that bore 
Eternal freshness and a will to ask 

Its God for signs and symbols to explore. 
Life is a whole, time but the agent strong, 

Stripping the fetters binding to the earth; 
There is no first, no last, nor right nor wrong 

That in itself is absolute, has worth; 
To-day is just as great as yesterday, 

The victory and truth still unrevealed, 
'Twill be the greater when the ancient way, 

In re-creations, bears its will unsealed. 

The reason's process through the straining years 
Evokes the heart's great tumult and its tears; 
And guides the master passion, through its light, 
To dissipate the darkness of the night. 



23 



W&t Jfreetng of tfje Spirit- 1 

To send anew the Word, heard, but unknown, 

To ever glow with brilliance, pure, serene, 
To light the beacons o'er the tombs, moss-grown, 

Doth verify a purpose, felt, not seen; 
Significance of soul present in One 

Doth glorify unto an age its fruit, 
And in the heart of man there has begun 

Acknowledgment of Law -as absolute: 
The law that finds its voice in one, then all. 

In leader, then in people to be led, 
Seeks of the loyal individual 

Some service to all living- from all dead. 
A Moses, Socrates, world-spirits these, 

A Charlemagne, a Luther, and Cromwell, 
Lean towards the higher law, and raise o'er seas 

And lands, the emblems of truth's citadel. 

Life's unit is the individual soul, 
Encased or free, on voyage to some goal; 
The world glows not but as the unit glows, 
Each trail of glory, glory fresh bestows. 



®fje Jfreeing of tfje g>pirit-2 

The sunlight of intelligence darts back 

Afar, whose rays destroy the atmosphere 
Of superstition, nightmares that do wrack 

Man's peace to terrorize his life with fear; 
And a Columbus steers his course due West 

To find a land whose bosom yields the hope 
To millions toiling in their homes, unblessed, 

Of freedom, and the right to live, not grope. 
Courageous voyager, sailing the main 

Of an uncharted sea, seeking to spell 
In letters bold, the mystic path, to gain 

Anew, man's right as ocean's sentinel: 
Thy followers, Vespuccius, Cabot, Drake, 

Champlain, La Salle, Balboa, and Marquette, 
Remade thy glory and served to awake 

The sleeping earth that would thy names forget. 

The world looks for a sign but sees it when - 
The years have raised it with the blood of men, 
Those fearless wanderers who've found new lands 
Died for a future that with praise expands. 



27 



Z\)t Coming o! t\)t ft aces I 

America -thy eastern shores received 

The human floods that swept their lines afar, 
And gave thy rolling acres -well achieved - 

Unto a world-task pointed by God's star. 
O'er hill and plain and mountain spread the host, 

Breaking the chains of empire and anew 
As a Republic, stretched from coast to coast, 

Sped liberty and freedom as man's due. 
The conquering of a continent- for use- 

Its untrod labyrinths op'ed and explored, 
Its timber felled, its surface tilled, excuse 

Enough for taking from a race abhorred 
Through dark and bloody cruelties unmatched, 

That land, a hunting ground, a haunt of beasts- 
Some day the home of millions unattached 

To old world privileges, to lords and priests. 

All Europe feels her title in this land 

Whose children found these shores, met first demand 

Imperative for blood, and later spread 

Her life, her thoughts, wherever pathways led. 



29 



Zi)t Coming of tfje &ace*~2 

As in each life, life's discipline flows from 

Repeated tasks, so conquest marks its pace 
From east to west, to constantly o'ercome 

Tide-water east, which fights the march of race. 
Each step seems by the older most opposed, 

And national vision comes first to the west; 
Yet rests that vision with its truth disclosed, 

Upon a government stable, the best: 
And oft as the expanding forces move 

Across the mountains, down the rivers' flight, 
They pause to settle and their rights to prove 

Against a nation's whettening appetite; 
Till in the passing years, 'mid struggles grim, 

A whole land sees with kindlier eyes, the soil 
As home of man, productive synonym 

For happiness, the right to live and toil. 

The Revolution was the first advance. 
The goal is reached but when the wide expanse 
From shore to shore a common purpose sings, 
Of people's rights, not selfish rule of kings. 



Cfje OTefomg of tie $art*-l 

The nation's pathway to its time of peace 

Lies over seas of blood, through years of storm ; 
Its course uncertain, bending at caprice 

Of party, section, to its dream perform. 
The right to occupy, to cultivate 

The land once taken from the Indian brave, 
Gave us our homes, yet fostered bitterest hate 

In that proud race, acts that it ne'er forgave. 
The right to independence, in our rule 

Of home affairs, in customs and in law, 
Brought on a strife, worthy of ridicule 

In part, in vaster part inspiring all. 
The right to freedom and to liberty, 

To strive and meet the urge of every soul ; 
The right of nation to its destiny, 

Found answer in the battle's grim control. 

These are the acts of an ambitious race 
Seeking its way, yet careless of its pace ; 
Brave and in purpose righteous but aware 
Too seldom, of the dangers that ensnare. 



33 



®f)e OTelfcmg of tfje $arta 2 

And in the wake of conquest came that scheme, 

Our government, that man, our Washington. 
A nation, raised to greatness, saw its dream 

Unfolding mightily, the battle won. 
In Washington, there was the harmony 

Of spirit, product of no single age 
Yet seeming like some vast reality 

Uplifting all the land, at every stage : 
In Hamilton, the genius of the mind 

Sought to preserve the fabric of our plan, 
Whose services and brilliance could not blind 

The nation to his hostile views of man. 
In Jefferson the people felt their own 

Will rising to the forefront in the fight, 
While upland Jackson made that will full grown, 

Yet needing Lincoln to our land unite. 

This country leans to leadership in part, 
A leadership that teaches of the heart; 
It needs its men of genius, thinkers bold, 
To raise its future earthworks, and to hold. 



35 



$art tluo 



Lincoln's First Official Utterance 

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds 
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the 
better angels of our nature. 

Lincoln's Last Public Expression 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow 
and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 



ancestral tracing* 

Ancestral Mendings of our Lincoln raised 

That giant mould of form and brain, the quest 
With ever wearying stress of times that crazed, 

To keep, and bring to fainting nation, rest. 
From out the life of England's wealth, there passed 

A glory to New England's rocky coast 
That in new forms and freer, did at last 

Trek to the South and West- a fertile host. 
The Anglo-Saxon Lincoln blood runs pure 

Throughout its English, Northern, Southern course, 
Harking to-day of Shakespere's mighty lure 

Of fame immortal, did it wield its force. 
The first among their equals, Lincolns moved 

From times long gone to fateful end of care; 
His race and Nancy's own have ever proved 

The value of the virtues born to dare. 

Our nation strikes its roots in other lands, 
Forming a tie that sympathy commands: 
To rear aloft a new race, a new man, 
Fairer in promise, nobler in his plan. 



41 



personal Sntimtanr rs 

True Puritan, thy soul in moral zeal, 

True Southern in its warmth and sympathy, 
True Western most in vision, makes men feel 

The ties of daily human chivalry. 
Thy mother's sway artistic, in thy blood, 

Lifted thy moral nature far beyond 
The sphere of narrow practice, and its flood 

Of dogma that does break, makes men despond, 
To regions where the mind and heart do leap 

Together in the framing of an act; 
To heights where vision falters not to keep 

The way of truth, with wisdom to attract. 
Thy father's worth to thee was honesty 

His tragic life failed utterly to kill; 
Those hardships borne with courage fashioned thee 

To know the test, and breast it with firm will. 

The blending family stocks richly prevail 
In weaving wondrous human fabrics, frail, 
And shimmering with the life pulse all aflame, 
Creation's document for time to claim. 



43 



Jjtome Jttfluencea 

How deeply has the heart of womankind 

Enveloped earth with love's sweet mystery! 
How marvelously its purer soul, entwined 

With baser things, thrilled life's humanity! 
How brightly has the lowly cottage shone 

With all the treasures of a fruitful love, 
E'en when the cottage boasts of love alone 

A holy incense radiates above! 
This lowly cottage in the fair South-land 

Was nurturing soil at birth, and in his youth, 
Storing a soul, impelled by high command, 

With common wisdom leading unto truth. 
The home, the forest, solitude of woods, 

Raised deep within his nature -sympathies; 
The books with thoughts and deeds, seemed brotherhoods, 

Framing their themes for future melodies. 

The sainted memories of childhood days 
Plead sympathetically for better ways; 
Spin daily texts in weaving of life-plans, 
Rounding life's arch, all beauteous in its spans. 



45 



Gtfje Call attb tfje "STteton 

The simple round of tasks filling the hours 

Of those who swiftly follow in the wake 
Of pioneers, may lend undreamed of powers 

For making real, great visions as they break. 
The merging of his youth in manhood's task, 

As Lincoln passed to forum of debate, 
Marked well the dawning insight, that the mask 

Of folly on the face of truth, bred hate. 
His call was of the deep unto the deep, 

With vision flashing out as nature's torch, 
Saw prejudice, the spectre, then o'erleap 

Man's reason and o'erthrow the national arch. 
He mastered principles that gripped the age. 

He saw beneath the coating of all form 
The monster slavery, our heritage 

From out the past, a curse presaging storm. 

The guilt of slavery first was borne by all, 
Though later woe on South did heaviest fall; 
The economic law first mastered right, 
And then by right was conquered in grim fight. 



47 



<P)e lato anb ttsf Uotce 

We never know the hour, the day, the year, 

"When God sees fit to place his rarest seal 
Of prescient truth, upon a life career, 

To evermore His purposes reveal. 
A backwoodsman uncouth, untrained, unknown, 

A fact athwart the theories of time, 
Stands forth in homely garb, his challenge thrown, 

Speaking the law that knows no race nor clime. 
A law that is eternal in its will, 

Biding no weakly turning from its sway, 
That calls upon mankind to heed, fulfil, 

Lest human bondage bring some vast decay. 
Enkindling law that stirs the common heart 

And mind to practise larger, nobler ends, 
Yet uttered by this man with simple art, 

Pleads for a practise that with mercy blends. 

The ripening wisdom of a mind unslaved 
By temper's prejudice, heart undepraved, 
Marshals an eloquence, recruiting trust, 
Prophetic of a day more fair, more just. 



49 



®fje Voice bttomti Rational 

The heavy hanging of storm-laden clouds, 

Wrapping the earth in gloom of sternest doubt, 
The signs and wonders playing 'midst the crowds, 

Helped sentiment, staid reason's choice to rout. 
The voice of reason and the scholar's hope 

United in the leader of the cause 
Of human rights, whose wisdom would not grope 

In darkness, at the breaking of the laws; 
But sentiment chose Lincoln as its voice, 

And sternly negatived the pride of place, 
With its ambitions and its selfish choice 

Of hard inhuman methods that debase. 
A nation brave in heart, yet bound in fear, 

Dreads issue pressing madly to the fore; 
It weeps and shudders, halts, while falling tear 

Of shame reveals the heart protesting sore. 

The ways of Seward had been tried -had failed 
But to arouse the passions, time bewailed: 
The ways of Douglas could no longer guide 
The moral-swinging nation o'er the tide. 



51 



OTeaimesft anfc fetrengtf) 

The nation's chief felt first the strain of grief 

That lay behind the gleam -war's panoply - 
&h, could the land have known its mighty chief, 

Its trust must soon have lessened enmity. 
rhe rendering of the ballot cleared the mist 

And bared the crevisse 'neath the foot of man; 
No longer lashing tongue, but mailed fist 

Seemed to the Southern section, Lincoln's plan, 
rhe radicals at last had reached their own; 

But all unknowingly a king chose they 
3f men, whose power might then have strewn 

Good-will upon this earth, and brought delay, 
Had not obsession seized the nation's mind, 

Both North and South, and blood of tumult beat 
Victorious o'er a pathway peace-designed: 

And Lincoln knew the sorrow of defeat. 

O mighty nation, bred to great ideas. 

To freedom's way and not to old world fears; 

Yet once again needing the patriot's deeds 

To save the land when statemanship stampedes. 



Rational Site 

The nation's blood tumultuous, now must dye 

The fruitful earth with mark of crimson stain, 
And strew its fields with dead, to pacify 

An age of conscience, stumbling to explain. 
Alas that carnage should prove arbiter 

For issues that our minds failed to control! 
Alas that war should prove artificer 

Of national edifice, and crimes condole! 
The mounting hopes of man in government 

Becloud themselves with theories unreal, 
And seek, sometimes, to thwart a nation's bent 

By rashly overlooking time's stern deal: 
As oft and even more a part withdraws 

In selfish eagerness to press its own 
Advantage, 'gainst the wisdom of the laws 

That guide the whole, through binding national tone. 

Man's savagery creeps forth at times to show 
How much we lean for aid on things below, 
Yet joyful comedy gives man's estate, 
Dark tragedies reveal what comes too late. 



55 



®tye Jfflajor anb tfje Minor 

Fallen the rights of man with nation's fall, 

Crushing the age-long hopes beneath despair, 
Had he, we trusted, failed to lift his call 

To task of Union-saving as his share. 
The Federal power supreme, our liberty, 

Lay trembling at the edge of frenzied might; 
Not first was smiting down of slavery, 

Though primal cause of nation's darkening night. 
The Federal power supreme- that shaping cone 

Of just efficiency in government 
That more and more must be, its base, its throne, 

Converging to its crown magnificent- 
With peak alone must tower to the sky 

Inviting to an outlook, single, true; 
While all the framing elements may try 

To add a varied glory to the view. 

In passion's time a lowly wisdom fights 
But haltingly against life wasting spites; 
Yet, in its steady flame hope lingers still, 
Till fury, sated, yields its outworn will. 



57 



TOje tricariu* Sacrifice 

The fast approaching Juggernaut of War 

Seemed destined to ride ruthless o'er the land, 
Crushing the hearts and deafening with its roar, 

Till dead and dying equalled fell demand. 
There fire and battle's smoke from woods to shore, 

There curse of men charging to life's last stand, 
Then groans and shrieks of dying, corps on corps, 

Then marching armies hurling torch and brand. 
Brave brother with brave brother madly fought, 

While mountains smoked and rivers changed their hue, 
And deeds of valor have forever wrought 

Courageous purpose to one national view. 
The world seems oft to pass beneath the cross 

And offer up its best to venture on ; 
'Tis certain that the world knows not its loss, 

Else grimmest vestments of its grief would don. 

War is the cure of kings, of potentates, 
The lust of power, its note reverberates; 
Sometimes a nation, reason ruled, resigns 
Its master, and to maddening war inclines. 



59 



Gflje JBurben anb tfje Jfaitlj 

When in those days lives spent themselves as dust, 

And God of shelter seemed no longer aid; 
A murmuring nation rose then to distrust 

Its Lincoln, poured forth bitter, cruel tirade. 
To read into those hardening facts of war, 

To see through all the killing of that time, 
The overflowing mercy, so much more, 

The culminating purpose, all sublime. 
These burdens etched the furrows on his face, 

And stooped his form beneath stern duty's drill; 
These gave unto his look its noble grace, 

Voicing e'en then and evermore God's will. 
But Lincoln held the faith a nation lacked 

And suffered not the vision to depart, 
However grievously the burden racked 

Or clamorously assailed each murmuring dart. 

The elemental strength of Lincoln lay 

In merging joy with sorrow through his day; 

In those excursions of the soul, that sift 

Life's nearness, making room for thoughts that lift. 



61 



TOje fjigfjer JNmamtp 

In nobleness of heart thou had'st few peers 

Among the great of earth, whose names we praise; 
Thy mighty daily tasks stayed not the tears 

Falling for aching hearts, through time's delays. 
Thy listening ear God's gracious message heard, 

Seeking to voice its accents wave on wave ; 
The wisdom of thy heart there ministered 

Till thy humanity reached to the slave. 
O'ermastering sense of fellowship with those 

Chained by the bonds men thought legitimate; 
Thou wept at slavery, sought to disclose 

Its inhumanity, so desolate. 
The lifting of the seal of servitude 

Was fair releasement for the sons of toil 
Too slowly nurtured by the customs crude 

To rise to greatness, bound unto the soil. 

The sacred rights of personality 
Throw out the challenge for true liberty. 
Raised from his bed of helplessness -captive 
Of all the ages -there to walk and live. 



63 



flTfje fngfter leaberstfjtp 

There is a leadership, creative, rare, 

That moves the slumbering nature to retrieve 
Its hours of idleness, and to prepare 

A fitting temple 'gainst the twilight's eve. 
It calls forth to achievement, throws aside 

The guilty creepings of ambition's trail, 
And veers the compass, pointed by our pride, 

To guide unerringly, though darts assail. 
It bars the door 'gainst memory's selfish wiles, 

And more and more fights silent and alone; 
Unmoved at last by flattery that beguiles 

The weakling, hearing not the deeper tone. 
This leadership was Lincoln's and its vein 

Lent strength to every talent of his aids; 
Grant, Seward, Stanton, Chase, and Welles attained 

Historic greatness, fearing not time's shades. 

The leadership of old drove to its end 
Bearing its virtues in its power to rend; 
No people's voice thundered its sacred cause 
Until democracy, wrought out its laws. 



65 



<&ettj>stfmrg 

The field of Gettysburg -ground consecrate 

To efforts superhuman and unmatched, 
To deeds of loyal valor born of great 

Resolvements and to unborn loves attached - 
Held mighty host as Lincoln rose to view, 

A President, a nation's father now, 
Whose heart in silence measured grief it knew, 

A grief fine words seemed illy to avow. 
The memories of that battle surged his brain 

And forced the breaking of a deep drawn sigh 
More eloquent than language to explain 

Those deeds that time will ever glorify. 
His words so brief, yet placed immortal wreath 

Upon the sufferers 'neath that scorching fire, 
The heirs of whom must always walk beneath 

The guidance of the truth -such deeds inspire. 

The battle's menace darked the universe, 
But sanguine victory shattered slavery's curse: 
The sacrifice appalled a blood-bought world, 
Hastening the day all battle flags are furled. 



67 



©eatf) of Htncoln 

Fourth anniversary of Sumter's fall, 

The brightest day when hopes of peace revived: 
The saddest night a nation could recall, 

Its Lincoln dead, its heaven of light deprived! 
Swift settled o'er this land a heavy pall, 

While grim and tear stained faces groped for naught 
That lay within man's power, now trivial, 

To give, when fell the best he ever wrought. 
Palsied with grief and awed with fear men sank, 

Not otherwise than victims in a flood, 
That bursting o'er the ill-restraining bank 

Strewed earth's fair green with wreckage and with blood. 
In every household where loved Lincoln reigned, 

There was the bitter funereal grief; 
Subdued was every tone, all joy enchained, 

While misery cleft deep in man's belief. 

'Twas in his years of service, through his deeds, 
That we knew Lincoln, loved his simple creeds ; 
Drank from his soul of richness, national power 
Sufficient unto rising 'bove death's awful hour. 



69 



OTfje ®Ba$ie of $aa*ion 

Assassination marked the climax grim 

Of evils crusting o'er the nation's form, 
And smote the heart of mercy- tore from him 

The right to edge with silver -clouds of storm. 
Doubt not the leaden messenger of death 

Eclipsed a beacon of new dawning peace; 
Blurred deep the people's vision, and their faith, 

With passion urging passion to increase. 
What meaning to life's span of consciousness, 

If at its strongest hour its doom is marked! 
What purpose, that a nation choose, possess 

Great leaders when on fearful war embarked! 
Where lies the logic of a man's stern fight 

If hopes and visions lead but to the cross! 
Why strives a nation mightily for right, 

If final contest brings but dire pathos! 

All killing is confession that we learn 
Impatiently- nor higher things discern: 
All meanings that we search for fail us when 
Our passions rise as cloud-banks round our ken. 



<©ut tmmatt Hosft 

Could his redeeming presence still have fed 

His day, hushing opinion's direful waste, 
Shaping war's sharp reactions, that o'erspread 

The nation's temper through its fretful haste; 
His human thinking, so uncritical, 

Yet seeing deep our needs and weaknesses, 
Would surely have swept chords, innumerable, 

And made of wounds new budding victories. 
A Lincoln dead, no other fills his place 

Or adequately soothes the frenzied mind, 
That does anew seek rudely to efface 

Those master lines of statecraft, wisdom twined. 
Love's fond immediacy resents a change 

Of object, and its virtues positive 
Slip quickly to negation's practice strange, 

And men arise whose lives have naught to give. 

Earth's leadership comes not with puny skill 

Of man to warp, manipulate at will 

The rights of fellow man, 'tis as the sun 

That through all time creatively its work has done. 



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$art tfjree 
W)t &cf)tebmg Spirit 



personal ^tgtufitante 

The personality of manhood lies 

In showing unto others, what is theirs; 
It is the chord once struck, brings joys or sighs, 

To some 'tis wheat, to many only tares. 
O Lincoln, Lincoln, tender, brave, and true, 

Thy love does make more beautiful, sublime, 
Each lowly human effort to subdue 

Life's errors and the habit of dread crime. 
The mystery of thy sympathy weaves fast 

The garment covering o'er the scars of sin ; 
While to the world thy agency looms vast 

With pregnant sources for the life within. 

The greater life of vision belts the globe, 
From zenith to horizon it doth probe. 



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®fje ®orcf) of permanence 

Thy personality doth prompt in all 

Emotions full and richer for thine own; 
Thy soul of goodness bursts prophetical, 

Upon the soul life, in its world unknown : 
It lifts the burdens that so agonize, 

Bringing to bearer message of relief; 
It calls upon the nations to arise, 

And bear the burdens -still the heart of grief. 
Soon will there come unto all lands just peace, 

Soon whisperings of the dawn of brighter days; 
Soon joys will rise for thought of pain's surcease, 

And wars will lesser vaunt their cruel displays. 

The gift of life is endless power to mould 
Man's spirit, and his best to help unfold. 



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®fje Jtotoer of Hobe 

And how he loved, who bore for us so much 

Of life's deep sorrow, and the martyr's crown! 
To hearts of men and women came a touch 

Of human kindness, all their hate to drown. 
He taught us much, who did his work so well 

That we have grown more like him, e'en shall grow, 
As through succeeding ages weaves the spell 

Of spirit upon spirit here below. 
The character of Lincoln rests secure 

With Washington's, eternally enshrined; 
Twin forces ever seeking to allure 

To walks of justice- with fair peace entwined. 

The North and South now strive to multiply 
The bonds of union -with love's strongest tie. 



81 



W$t fjtgfjer {Etiinfeing 

Lincoln was master of the common lore, 

And easily ascended wisdom's plane; 
Bore in himself the thought to first restore 

The Union and its limits to maintain. 
Wisdom again shone o'er his war time acts, 

And prompted to a sure ingathering trust 
That Lincoln's heart and brain knew best the facts, 

Knew how to guide, control, and be most just. 
Wisdom -that higher thinking of the soul- 

Alone gives basis for the soul's delight; 
Wisdom -'tis more than learning's aureole - 

'Tis common knowledge grafted with foresight. 

Who clings to fundamentals -bears the cross. 
But through his wisdom sanctifies all loss. 



83 



Cfje Corel) of $otoer 

No gold nor earthly gewgaws dimmed the glance 

That probed behind man's lean and selfish life; 
No prize of power transcendent, turned the lance 

That pricked unerringly the ills of strife. 
Back to the past, then up the steep ascent 

Of daily life, he traced his weary rise, 
Communing with the God omnipotent, 

And earth streamed with the faith of sacrifice. 
The soul that reaches back to lowly trails 

As duty flings its issues on the brain, 
Unearths a mint and cummin that avails 

As daily altar where God's fires obtain. 

Unfolding laws sometimes bind earth and skies, 
And man finds the eternal, ere he dies. 



Jfortitube 

Thy fortitude in shouldering each defeat, 

And courage when adversity bore near, 
Showed forth a nature practical -concrete, 

Which loses naught with minglings of dread fear. 
Thou coped with every ill that threatened harm; 

Thou warred with every rumor of disgrace: 
Thy being rose with sternness to disarm 

Those minions, self-appointed, treacherous, base. 
The times vouchsafed no virtuous clemency, 

Nor wafted to thy spirit fragrant hours, 
But doomed thy life with dread calamity, 

Testing the height and depth of human powers. 

When fortitude seems greatest, there is love 
That delves the deepest, soars to heavens above. 



87 



W*t "£Xoice of belief 

Humor is active, wisdom's instrument, 

And played with kind insinuating grace, 
Falls as the dew, not as the rain's torrent, 

Lifting to keen delight- the commonplace. 
It turns aside the stinging darts of foes, 

Through understanding of their origin; 
It brings to human suffering ease of woes, 

From feeling joy as sorrow's nearest kin. 
Thy spirit's humor-gift of God to thee- 

Brought to thy life an agency divine, 
That more and more in full and high degree, 

Served usefully thy deeds to interline. 

Humor enables us to see ahead, 

Though fierce the breakers o'er the way we tread. 



89 



Wqi fjiflfter libing 

Thy patience, all enduring, did supplant 

The weary wastes of passion's wild despair, 
And overturn the ill advice and cant 

Flowing relentlessly, man's will to snare. 
It bore thee past all insults grave, 

Springing from lips through ignorance or guile; 
It carried thy kind heart, that ills forgave, 

To sterner deeds, as fallen times defile. 
Thy patience, like the flakes of falling snow, 

Unconsciously sifts o'er the people's heart, 
Adding a purity that does bestow 

A cleaner footing and a nobler part. 

Thy voice to us does speak- does patience urge, 
That wisdom's ways may common ills submerge. 



91 



W$t Croton of Utfe 

The alabaster box of ointment spreads 

Its precious contents o'er the Master's feet, 
While Mary, in true humbleness that sheds 

Its rays of glory o'er all time complete, 
Dries with her hair, and hears the Master's tones 

Blessing the giver and the gift of love: 
So Lincoln bears a soul that ne'er disdains 

The way of service for his God above; 
All ways turned upward in that simple rule 

Scaling to heights no monarch ever knew, 
Turning the shafts of sharpest ridicule 

To perfumed laws 'neath flails, thought to subdue. 

The truest human spirit does explore 
Unto the heart of man -its boundless lore. 



93 



Gtfje jfiatton'* g>eer 

The tall and stately pine-tree rears aloft 

Its needle-pointed vestments, bears its sway, 
As prophet o'er a wilderness, and oft 

Tells to the ear attuned, of storms that play. 
So rose our Lincoln to his lonely view 

Above the hill tops springing from the plain; 
Then saw he far beyond, and through and through, 

As earth-contact thrilled messages of pain. 
A man, our very own, to earth so near, 

So simple in his heartfelt tenderness, 
Yet with a vision, piercing heights, a seer, 

Tracing the storm clouds and the war's duress. 

Seems human life a vain and worthless thing 
Attuned by Lincoln to love's deathless spring! 



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